Better luck next time

That’s the startling (and frankly depressing) assertion made by Designated Pilot Examiner Jason Blair in his November 16 blog at jasonblair.net. (Blair also writes occasionally for Flight School Business.)

The statistic comes from the FAA’s Designee Management System, and a table in the FAA Airman Certification Data at FAA.gov confirms the information, indicating that 56 percent of private pilot applicants who took a checkride in 2021 were approved.

“Take this to heart, please,” Blair writes. “It means that nearly half of our pilot applicants are failing their first attempts at a private pilot certificate.”

Of course the kneejerk reaction to this is to wonder who’s at fault. Is it the students? Are they just not as capable or unwilling to put in the work associated with earning a pilot certificate?

Or is it the instructors (and, by association, the flight schools)?

Blair wisely doesn’t try to attribute blame to any single party and he is not entertaining any “those darn kids and their video games” arguments. As a flight instructor and a designated pilot examiner, he knows the answer is a lot more complicated than simply pointing a finger and assigning blame.

But, as a DPE, Blair sees what kind of fledgling pilots our industry is sending out into the world.

“As a DPE, I can’t help but feel like too many flight training operations have transformed from a process of ‘training to meet or exceed a standard and happen to meet experience requirements along the way,’ to a ‘train to meet experience requirements, and hope they happen to meet training standards,’” he says.

“Talking with many DPEs around the country, the sentiment seems to be that many times instructors are throwing a student at a practical test and hoping they will pass,” Blair says. “The logic is, if they don’t, they can just train a few items and get them the certificate anyway.”

This is a troubling approach, says Blair, because of the tremendous demand for pilot hiring the industry is experiencing right now. “Pushing lots of pilots through our training systems to meet the airline hiring needs can be great as long as it is done without degrading safety and with a focus on true learning,” he says. “Cutting corners or rushing people through who aren’t really ready doesn’t help us all in the long run.”

Look at your flight school’s first time pass/fail rate. Is it pacing the national average? If so, it’s time to examine the question from both sides—the trainer and the student—to see where improvements can be made.

Read Blair’s entire blog here.